LeRobot documentation
Bring Your Own Policies
Bring Your Own Policies
This tutorial explains how to integrate your own custom policy implementations into the LeRobot ecosystem, allowing you to leverage all LeRobot tools for training, evaluation, and deployment while using your own algorithms.
Step 1: Create a Policy Package
Your custom policy should be organized as an installable Python package following LeRobot’s plugin conventions.
Package Structure
Create a package with the prefix lerobot_policy_ (IMPORTANT!) followed by your policy name:
lerobot_policy_my_custom_policy/
├── pyproject.toml
└── src/
└── lerobot_policy_my_custom_policy/
├── __init__.py
├── configuration_my_custom_policy.py
├── modeling_my_custom_policy.py
└── processor_my_custom_policy.pyPackage Configuration
Set up your pyproject.toml:
[project]
name = "lerobot_policy_my_custom_policy"
version = "0.1.0"
dependencies = [
# your policy-specific dependencies
]
requires-python = ">= 3.12"
[build-system]
build-backend = # your-build-backend
requires = # your-build-systemStep 2: Define the Policy Configuration
Create a configuration class that inherits from PreTrainedConfig and registers your policy type:
Here is a template to get you started, customize the parameters and methods as needed for your policy’s architecture and training requirements.
# configuration_my_custom_policy.py
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from lerobot.configs.policies import PreTrainedConfig
from lerobot.optim.optimizers import AdamWConfig
from lerobot.optim.schedulers import CosineDecayWithWarmupSchedulerConfig
@PreTrainedConfig.register_subclass("my_custom_policy")
@dataclass
class MyCustomPolicyConfig(PreTrainedConfig):
"""Configuration class for MyCustomPolicy.
Args:
n_obs_steps: Number of observation steps to use as input
horizon: Action prediction horizon
n_action_steps: Number of action steps to execute
hidden_dim: Hidden dimension for the policy network
# Add your policy-specific parameters here
"""
horizon: int = 50
n_action_steps: int = 50
hidden_dim: int = 256
optimizer_lr: float = 1e-4
optimizer_weight_decay: float = 1e-4
def __post_init__(self):
super().__post_init__()
if self.n_action_steps > self.horizon:
raise ValueError("n_action_steps cannot exceed horizon")
def validate_features(self) -> None:
"""Validate input/output feature compatibility."""
if not self.image_features:
raise ValueError("MyCustomPolicy requires at least one image feature.")
if self.action_feature is None:
raise ValueError("MyCustomPolicy requires 'action' in output_features.")
def get_optimizer_preset(self) -> AdamWConfig:
return AdamWConfig(lr=self.optimizer_lr, weight_decay=self.optimizer_weight_decay)
def get_scheduler_preset(self):
return None
@property
def observation_delta_indices(self) -> list[int] | None:
"""Relative timestep offsets the dataset loader provides per observation.
Return `None` for single-frame policies. For temporal policies that consume
multiple past or future frames, return a list of offsets, e.g. `[-20, -10, 0, 10]` for
3 past frames at stride 10 and 1 future frame at stride 10.
"""
return None
@property
def action_delta_indices(self) -> list[int]:
"""Relative timestep offsets for the action chunk the dataset loader returns.
"""
return list(range(self.horizon))
@property
def reward_delta_indices(self) -> None:
return NoneStep 3: Implement the Policy Class
Create your policy implementation by inheriting from PreTrainedPolicy:
# modeling_my_custom_policy.py
import torch
import torch.nn as nn
from typing import Any
from lerobot.policies.pretrained import PreTrainedPolicy
from lerobot.utils.constants import ACTION
from .configuration_my_custom_policy import MyCustomPolicyConfig
class MyCustomPolicy(PreTrainedPolicy):
config_class = MyCustomPolicyConfig # must match the string in @register_subclass
name = "my_custom_policy"
def __init__(self, config: MyCustomPolicyConfig, dataset_stats: dict[str, Any] = None):
super().__init__(config, dataset_stats)
config.validate_features() # not called automatically by the base class
self.config = config
self.model = ... # your nn.Module here
def reset(self):
"""Reset episode state."""
...
def get_optim_params(self) -> dict:
"""Return parameters to pass to the optimizer (e.g. with per-group lr/wd)."""
return {"params": self.parameters()}
def predict_action_chunk(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor], **kwargs) -> torch.Tensor:
"""Return the full action chunk (B, chunk_size, action_dim) for the current observation."""
...
def select_action(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor], **kwargs) -> torch.Tensor:
"""Return a single action for the current timestep (called at inference)."""
...
def forward(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor]) -> dict[str, torch.Tensor]:
"""Compute the training loss.
`batch["action_is_pad"]` is a bool mask of shape (B, horizon) that marks
timesteps padded because the episode ended before `horizon` steps, you
can exclude those from your loss.
"""
actions = batch[ACTION]
action_is_pad = batch.get("action_is_pad")
...
return {"loss": ...}Step 4: Add Data Processors
Create processor functions. For a concrete reference, see processor_act.py or processor_diffusion.py.
# processor_my_custom_policy.py
from typing import Any
import torch
from lerobot.processor import PolicyAction, PolicyProcessorPipeline
def make_my_custom_policy_pre_post_processors(
config,
dataset_stats: dict[str, dict[str, torch.Tensor]] | None = None,
) -> tuple[
PolicyProcessorPipeline[dict[str, Any], dict[str, Any]],
PolicyProcessorPipeline[PolicyAction, PolicyAction],
]:
preprocessor = ... # build your PolicyProcessorPipeline for inputs
postprocessor = ... # build your PolicyProcessorPipeline for outputs
return preprocessor, postprocessorImportant - function naming: LeRobot discovers your processor by name. The function must be called make_{policy_name}_pre_post_processors (matching the string you passed to @PreTrainedConfig.register_subclass).
Step 5: Package Initialization
Expose your classes in the package’s __init__.py:
# __init__.py
"""Custom policy package for LeRobot."""
try:
import lerobot # noqa: F401
except ImportError:
raise ImportError(
"lerobot is not installed. Please install lerobot to use this policy package."
)
from .configuration_my_custom_policy import MyCustomPolicyConfig
from .modeling_my_custom_policy import MyCustomPolicy
from .processor_my_custom_policy import make_my_custom_policy_pre_post_processors
__all__ = [
"MyCustomPolicyConfig",
"MyCustomPolicy",
"make_my_custom_policy_pre_post_processors",
]Step 6: Installation and Usage
Install Your Policy Package
cd lerobot_policy_my_custom_policy
pip install -e .
# Or install from PyPI if published
pip install lerobot_policy_my_custom_policyUse Your Policy
Once installed, your policy automatically integrates with LeRobot’s training and evaluation tools:
lerobot-train \
--policy.type my_custom_policy \
--env.type pusht \
--steps 200000Examples and Community Contributions
Check out these example policy implementations:
- DiTFlow Policy - Diffusion Transformer policy with flow-matching objective. Try it out in this example: DiTFlow Example
Share your policy implementations with the community! 🤗
Update on GitHub